Background

Ethnicity: The Bernoulli family came originally from Antwerp, at that time in the Spanish Netherlands, but emigrated to escape the Spanish persecution of the Protestants. After a brief period in Frankfurt the family moved to Basel, in Switzerland.

Nicolaus Bernoulli, V was born on February 6, 1695, in Basel, Switzerland, the son of Johann Bernoulli, a mathematician, who was one of the early developers of calculus, and Dorothea Falkner.

Education

From the age of 13, Nicolaus Bernoulli, V studied mathematics and law at the University of Basel. In 1711 he received his Master's of Philosophy; in 1715 he received a Doctorate in Law.

Career

In 1716 - 1717 Bernoulli, V was a private tutor in Venice. From 1719 he had the Chair in Mathematics at the University of Padua, as the successor of Giovanni Poleni. He served as an assistant to his father, among other areas, in the correspondence over the priority dispute between Isaac Newton and Leibniz, and also in the priority dispute between his father and the English mathematician Brook Taylor. In 1720 he posed the problem of reciprocal orthogonal trajectories, which was intended as a challenge for the English Newtonians.

From 1723 Bernoulli, V was a law professor at the Berner Oberen Schule. In 1725 he together with his brother Daniel, with whom he was touring Italy and France at this time, was invited by Peter the Great to the newly founded St. Petersburg Academy. Eight months after his appointment he came down with a fever and died on July 31, 1726, in Saint Petersburg, Russia. His early death cut short a promising career.

Achievements

• Nicolaus Bernoulli, V is remembered as a mathematician, who worked mostly on curves, differential equations, and probability. He also contributed to fluid dynamics.

Connections

Father:

Johann Bernoulli, I

Johann Bernoulli, I, also known as Jean or John, was a Swiss mathematician, classical philologist and professor of mathematics at the University of Basel, who is known for his contributions to infinitesimal calculus and educating Leonhard Euler in the pupil's youth.

Mother:

Dorothea Bernoulli (Falkner)

Brother:

Daniel Bernoulli

Daniel Bernoulli was a Swiss mathematician and physicist, who investigated not only mathematics but also such fields as medicine, biology, physiology, mechanics, physics, astronomy, and oceanography.

Brother:

Johann Bernoulli, II

Johann Bernoulli, II, also known as Jean, was a Swiss mathematician, physicist and professor of mathematics at the University of Basel.

Sister:

Anna Catharina Dollfus (Bernoulli)

Sister:

Dorothea Battier (Bernoulli)

Brother:

Johann Jacob Bernoulli

Brother:

Emanuel Bernoulli, I

Uncle:

Jacob Bernoulli, I

Jacob Bernoulli, I, also known as James or Jacques, was a Swiss mathematician and professor of mathematics at the University of Basel, who devoted his career to the study of calculating complex numerical formulas.

Friend:

Leonhard Euler

Leonhard Euler was a Swiss mathematician, physicist, astronomer, logician and engineer, who made important and influential discoveries in many branches of mathematics, such as infinitesimal calculus and graph theory, while also making pioneering contributions to several branches such as topology and analytic number theory.